From left: Former Secretary of Defense Ronald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush, and former Vice President Dick Cheney with their hands over their hearts. (Photo: File/Public Domain)

It is a common misconception that democracies do not start wars of aggression or carry out terrorist attacks. The historical facts for the period from 1945 to today show a completely different reality: time and again, democratic states in Europe and North America have participated in wars of aggression and terrorist attacks in the past 70 years.

There are so many cases that I am not able to list all of them here. As examples, I have selected three events from different decades:

the illegal attack by the European democracies Britain and France on Egypt in 1956;

the terrorist attack by the democracy France on Rainbow Warrior, a ship operated by the environmental organization Greenpeace in 1985;

and the illegal attack by US President Donald Trump on Syria on April 7, 2017.

Because mass media, neither in the European nor the American democracies, openly address and criticize these crimes and because so far the responsible politicians have not been convicted by a court, a stubborn misconception persists in the populations of these aggressor states that democracies never start wars and also never use terror as a political instrument.

But the three examples mentioned show clearly:

Democracies, members of the NATO military alliance and with a veto power in the UN Security Council to protect themselves from condemnation, have repeatedly attacked other countries.

This is illegal. For the UN Charter of 1945, Article 2 (4), clearly states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force..[..]

The Charter only allows the use of force if an attacked state defends itself or if the United Nations Security Council has approved the military strike. In all other cases, the UN prohibits war. Terrorist attacks are always prohibited.

The attack on Egypt in 1956

Egypt is a strategically important country because of the 160 kilometer long Suez Canal, opened in 1869. It plays a central role in supplying Europe with crude oil. The canal connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and saves ships from the Persian Gulf to Europe the detour around Africa. Today, the canal is plied daily by tankers bringing oil and liquefied natural gas to the European market.

For Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ruled Egypt as president in the 1950s, the Suez Canal was a hated symbol of European colonialism, because the long and narrow water-way through the Egyptian desert had been built by the French and thereafter became the private Suez Canal Company, jointly owned by France and the colonial power Great Britain.

Nasser pursued a nationalist policy of neutrality in the Cold War and cultivated cooperation with India and Yugoslavia, whose non-alignment he admired. In order to prevent Egypt from falling into the sphere of influence of the communist Soviet Union, the Americans and British, together with the World Bank, in 1955 promised Egypt a loan for the construction of a massive dam on the Nile near Aswan. The dam would allow Nasser to regulate the water masses of the Nile during the annual floods, for agricultural purposes and production of renewable hydropower for the industrialization of Egypt.

But in July 1956, US President Dwight Eisenhower changed his mind. After consulting with London and the World Bank, he said that Egypt was not creditworthy because Nasser recognized the People’s Republic of China and publicly had stated that he wanted to destroy Israel. Nasser became enraged and decided that the oil transit fees from the Suez Canal now needed to finance the construction of the planned Aswan High Dam. Therefore, on July 26, 1956 he nationalized the Suez Canal Company, to the horror of France and Britain.

British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was shocked, and feared that the Soviets would extend their sphere of influence. In April 1956, shortly before the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Eden had warned the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev with clear words:

“As far as oil is concerned, I have to bluntly tell you – we would fight for it … we could not live without oil and … we do not intend to be strangled.”

After nationalization, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also insisted to the British and French foreign ministers that “a way had to be found to make Nasser disgorge” the canal (1).

Britain decided to use military resources to fight for the canal and access to Middle East oil. “The truth is that we are caught in a terrible dilemma,” noted British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in his diary:

“If we take strong action against Egypt, and as a result the canal is closed, the pipelines to the Levant are cut, the Persian Gulf revolts and oil production is stopped, then the U.K. and Western Europe have ‘had it’.”

But “if we suffer a diplomatic defeat; if Nasser gets away with it” – and the Middle East countries, in a ferment, ‘nationalize oil’ … we have equally ‘had it’. What then are we to do? It seems clear to me that we should take the only chance we have – to take strong action, and hope that thereby our friends in the Middle East will stand, our enemies fall, and the oil be saved – but it is a tremendous decision”(2).

As part of a conspiracy – by definition, a secret agreement between two or more people to reach a common goal – high-ranking representatives of Britain, France and Israel met in a villa in Sèvres, near Paris between October 22-24, 1956 to plan the top-secret Operation Musketeer.

Israeli soldiers waving at a French Air Force aircraft (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The British delegation was led by Foreign Minister Selwyn Lloyd, the French by Prime Minister Guy Mollet and the Israelis by Prime Minister Ben Gurion. The conspirators decided that Israel should attack Egypt and advance militarily through the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula to the Suez Canal. France and Britain would then give Nasser an unacceptable ultimatum, creating an excuse to militarily occupy the Suez Canal. The goal of the action was to gain control of the Suez Canal and, Israel hoped, overthrow Nasser.

Of course, the planned war was illegal, because it contradicted the prohibition of violence in the UN Charter, but the conspirators did not care about international law. On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army attacked Egypt right on schedule and occupied the Sinai Peninsula. Thereby Israel made itself guilty of the crime of aggression.

The US quickly realized that this was an illegal war of aggression, and on October 30th summoned the Security Council to a special session. US Ambassador Henry Lodge called for the “the immediate cessation of the military action of Israel in Egypt”. The Egyptian ambassador, Omar Loutfi, condemned the Israeli attack on his country with very sharp words. “Israeli troops have invaded Egyptian territory in various places,” this is an “extremely dangerous act of aggression” (3).

Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban did not deny that the Israeli army had attacked Egypt, but stressed that it was an act of self-defense. The French UN ambassador, as agreed, stood on the Israeli side. “Egyptian imperialism” is trying to control the area from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and aims at “the destruction of Israel”. Contrary to all legal obligations, Egypt also had seized a “water-way which is essential to the life of the nations.” (4)

Then, as agreed, France and Britain presented their unacceptable ultimatum, demanding that Egyptian and Israeli forces retreat to a distance of ten miles from the water-way and allow British and French troops to control strategic positions on the Suez Canal. Waiting only twelve hours for an answer, British Ambassador Sir Pierson Dixon warned that “British and French forces will intervene in whatever strength may be necessary to secure compliance” (4).

Of course, this ultimatum was unacceptable to Egypt. It served the European democracies France and Britain as an excuse to attack Egypt. This was of course illegal, because they did not have a mandate from the Security Council. The conspiracy that existed before the attack between the three countries remained a secret at that time and was exposed by historians only years later.

Robert O’Leary, JD BARA, has had an abiding interest in alternative health products & modalities since the early 1970’s & he has seen how they have made people go from lacking health to vibrant health. He became an attorney, singer-songwriter, martial artist & father along the way and brings that experience to his practice as a BioAcoustic Soundhealth Practitioner, under the tutelage of the award-winning founder of BioAcoustic Biology, Sharry Edwards, whose Institute of BioAcoustic Biology has now been serving clients for 30 years with a non-invasive & safe integrative modality that supports the body’s ability to self-heal using the power of the human voice. Robert brings this modality to serve clients in Greater Springfield, Massachusetts and New England (USA) & “virtually” the world. He can also be reached at romayasoundhealthandbeauty@gmail.

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